Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

46 rejoicings that were ‘maintained until very late’. The following Monday a Committee was formed under the chairmanship of the indefatigable Mr S. Green to arrange for a joint celebration of the relief and the Queen’s Birthday, which fell on Thursday, 24 May. The evening began with a parade of sixty gaily-decorated bicycles, some of their riders in pretty costumes and some in grotesque. Led by the village band in a wagon, the parade started from the Lion corner and circled the village, its houses ‘brave with bunting’, via the Hoo Baulk, Lucks Lane and Stirtloe. After more patriotic airs and the National Anthem, a torchlight procession (some 100 torches) paraded round the village cheering, singing and letting off fireworks, and ended up at a huge bonfire in a field on the Grafham Road. If anyone finds an old-fashioned policeman’s helmet gathering dust in their attic, it may be the one ‘lost’ during the celebrations by the unfortunate village constable, Pc Purser. Such dereliction of duty would have earned him an embarrassing few minutes at the next inspection parade at St Neots police station– doubly embarrassing for him: he had only been in post a couple of months. Mahomed, Sake Deen of Brighton, ‘shampooing surgeon to the Royal Family’, was an early Victorian medical entrepreneur whose book Shampooing; or, Benefits Resulting from the use of the Indian Medicated Vapour Bath as introduced into this country by a native of India….containing a brief but comprehensive view of the effects produced by the use of the warm bath went into several editions. It includes a long list of distinguished and grateful patients, one of whom was Dr Maltby, Vicar of Buckden (see following entry). Maltby family: Edward Maltby, DD FRS FSA (1770-1859), long- serving vicar Vicar of Buckden, later a bishop, was a man who aroused conflicting feelings. Some contemporary views: ‘Dear Ned – grave, unaffected, and very impressive’ – Samuel Parr, his first headmaster ‘The best and most amiable of young men’ – Dr Joseph Warton, headmaster Headmaster of Winchester College ‘One of the great scholars of the age’ – John Johnstone ‘It was unworthy of him, as a Christian, to assume the virtues he had not.’ – Mrs Jane Scarborough, landlady of the George, Buckden ‘An excellent man and a great fool’ – Sidney Smith ‘…distinguished above all his brethren …[a man of] learning, piety and talents’ – The Times 1830 ‘...this loose and lordly priest .. time-serving remonstrant .. slippery prelate .. consecrated culprit .. licentious speculatist .. has disgraced himself for ever .. ought to be drummed out of the Church.’ – The Times 1838 ‘one of the first scholars, and most respectable clergymen, in England’ – John Britton ‘…a bishop unworthy of [his] huge income, unworthy of the church, unworthy of the age in which he lives:’ – The Daily News 1849 ‘I like the Bishop very much... [only he] is very deaf with one ear, which is rather disagreeable’ – Emily Pepys, aged 10 ‘ Remarkably maladroit’ – Queen Victoria (after he nearly dropped the orb at her coronation) Edward Maltby was born in Norwich, the fourth son of a master-weaver. A clever child, he was fortunate enough to have his cleverness noticed and developed by the headmaster Headmaster of Norwich grammar school. At fifteen he moved on to Winchester College, and from there was entered at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, by his cousin’s husband Dr George Pretyman (q.v.), the bishop Bishop of Lincoln and lately privately secretary (and still close friend) to the Prime Minister, William Pitt. Maltby continued to distinguish himself while at Cambridge, winning prizes and medals (for academic achievements: he was decidedly not an athletic man). In 1794, Bishop Pretyman brought him to Buckden as his domestic chaplain; he also gave him three other church appointments including that of vicar Vicar of Buckden. In the same year, Maltby married Mary Harvey, with whom he had several children. (Perhaps anticipating this prolificacy, the bishop had the vicarage extended in 1795.) In 1820 they lost their eldest son, George Rivers Maltby (see below); another son died in infancy. Maltby became widely-known as a fine classical scholar, an impressive preacher (appointed to speak at both Cambridge University and two Inns of Court) and a political pamphleteer, This last was unfortunate, as his politics (Whig) were not those of the government (Tory). As a result, his career in the church stalled and he remained in Buckden, unpromoted, for over thirty-five years. Nonetheless, this did not prevent his becoming something of a national figure through his preaching, his publications and his tutoring of private pupils, some of whom went on to distinguished careers. He was a passionate advocate of education, political reform and religious free speech: he befriended both dissenters and Roman Catholics (but later opposed the re-establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in Britain). Despite his fame, he seems, so far as Buckden at least was concerned, to have been a reasonably diligent vicar. This cannot be said of all parish clergy of his time. His wife died in 1825. Just over a year later, Maltby married Margaret Mary Green, one of the Greens of Coneygarths (q.v.). The new Mrs Maltby was related to yet another bishop, the Bishop of Lincoln Dr John Green, a rare bird in that he was happier living in London than in Buckden. Maltby’s second marriage connected him more or less closely to some of Buckden’s leading yeoman or gentleman farmers, including the Wallers, the Longlands and the Priestleys. Politics continued to absorb his interest and that of his son Edward Harvey Maltby (see below). Much of the routine church life of the village now fell to his curate, the tragic Francis Jefferson (q.v.). The long years of Tory rule ended in 1830, and in 1831, the new prime minister hurriedly made Maltby bishop of Chichester to help push the Reform Bill through the House of Lords.